Of Hel and Earth
by BlackCatHikari
Summary: When Luna appeared on Harry's doorstep one evening with a job offer from the Unspeakables, Harry decides a change of pace is just what he needs. Getting dumped in a certain alien-ravaged city in an entirely different dimension is not what he signed up for. Post-Avengers (2012), very post-HP AU.
1. Of Chances and Choices

_Hi all. Thanks for giving OHAE a chance :) Please review whether you like it or not - concrit is highly appreciated. And I love bantering and explaining things.  
_

_Per request, note: this is **not slash**. In fact, I'm not planning any pairings except the canonical Tony/Pepper and Thor/Jane, and even then they'll only be in passing. I don't write romance.  
_

_Please, enjoy. -BC_

* * *

**Chapter One: Of Chances and Choices**

There was a memorial for Dumbledore, one year after his death, and a sparsely-attended funeral for Severus Snape, the Order of Merlin First Class Harry had insisted on mounted onto his gravestone. There was the funeral of Remus and Tonks and arranging custody for Teddy - Andromeda was quick to adopt him, thankfully, as Harry was in no position to be looking after a kid. Harry was almost numb by the time Fred's funeral came around and he didn't remember much for a couple of months after that.

In late July, two months after Voldemort's defeat, a band of rogue Death Eaters managed to track him down, raiding the small shack he had been renting on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Luckily Neville was visiting at the time and between them they took down the dozen wizards with little fuss. Turning the captured Death Eaters over to the Ministry was tense - the aurors had arrived just as they were wrapping up, as usual - but meant there was a dozen less maniacs out on the streets.

Hermione managed to convince Harry to move into one of the guest chambers at Hogwarts after that, despite his protests that he could look after himself. And he could, though he wasn't about to tell anyone why.

The Hallows had returned.

It had been in the middle of the fight, when they'd already put five out of action and Neville was somewhere in the backyard dueling three more and Harry was left with the remaining four in the living room. Four wasn't too many - he knew that from experience - but somehow one of them had slipped past him, coming up behind and throwing an overpowered expelliarmus at his unprotected back. His wand had gone flying and he'd stumbled from the force of the spell, tripping over the coffee table and landing sprawled on his back on the floor. Harry had panicked then, knowing that he was an easy target with his ankle twisted around the table leg like that and had watched in horror as the four Death Eaters had advanced on him, deadly dark curses on their smirking lips.

The men had spoken, light flaring from their wands, and Harry had had a last moment to think_ of all the ways to die _and he had thrown one arm up to cover his eyes and-

And a foreign if calming weight had settled into his hand and a bright dome of white light had appeared to shield him.

The shock of it - of having somehow called up his magic with his wand on the other side of the room - took a moment to settle in. But once it had and his mind had finally registered that there had been four splashes of coloured light against the shield and that it was far too quiet, Harry had slowly sat up, his arm dropping, to find that his assailants had apparently been knocked out. It didn't look like any spell he usually used and it certainly wasn't the spells they had been aiming at him - he was sure he had heard a _crucio_ in there somewhere - so he put it down to accidental magic and turned his mind to other problems.

Like the wand in his hand. The wand that wasn't _his_.

_The Elder Wand._

Despite having disposed of it as soon as he had been able, it had somehow found its way back to him. Admittedly it had been at just the right time, but still. He didn't _want_ it.

Then he had moved to stand and had felt a familiar weight in his pocket and almost groaned. The Resurrection Stone, of course, had followed its counterpart and, in almost a mockery of his first year, appeared in his pocket. The Cloak was in his other pocket, kept there permanently in case he ever needed it to escape from Death Eaters or rabid reporters. Which, of course, meant he had all three Hallows on him at once.

That was when things had taken a turn for the worse, a groan from the other side of the couch alerting him to the fact that the Death Eaters were waking up. Harry had scrambled up, Elder wand in hand, and when another Death Eater had burst through the back door, Neville on his heels, Harry had acted without thinking.

"_Expelliarmus!"_

The light of the spell had erupted from his wand, ten times brighter than ever before, and an answering glow had spilled from his pockets. The next thing he knew Harry was blinking away the spots in his vision, Neville and the five Death Eaters were sprawled on the floor and the Hallows had disappeared.

It took three days and a visit with Hermione and Ron (both having moved into Hogwarts for the moment) before he discovered where they had gone. A flash of unexpected colour in a mirror out of the corner of his eye had been his only warning but Hermione had seen it too and she demanded to know why he'd gotten a tattoo.

A familiar symbol - a circle inside a triangle, both bisected by a vertical line - met his eyes in the magical mirror and Harry felt a thrill of something like fear run through him. He'd thought he'd finally gotten rid of them (though he had mourned the loss of the Cloak) but no. There they were, tattooed onto the back of his neck like some kind of brand. He was only glad that it was not somewhere ore visible, being easily hidden by a collar and slightly longer hair.

It had taken a few weeks and a couple more run-ins with renegade Death Eaters for him to master the Hallows, but soon enough he could call them into existence whenever he wanted, the required Hallow simply appearing in his hand. He supposed it was a bonus of having all three - something to do with that 'Master of Death' title he really didn't want.

Eventually Harry had moved on from the rebuilding to enter the Auror Academy with Ron. Tensions had run high about midway through the course when Harry had broken up with Ginny (it was a mutual decision but Ron was still very much her big brother) but after three years they finally graduated, Harry at the top of the year.

It was a good life, as far as Harry was concerned, chasing wizards and witches around the country. There were even a few times when he got to travel abroad. But even at the start of his career Harry knew there was something wrong, something missing, and two years later it was definite.

He wasn't aging.

It hadn't been quite so obvious at first - wizards aged slower than muggles after all and that usually kicked in around the early twenties, but by the time he was twenty-three and still looked not a day older that eighteen, Harry could no longer deny it.

Hermione had noticed it long before, of course, but had originally chalked it up to malnutrition as a child stunting his growth still or perhaps the phoenix tears he had been healed with all those years ago. But five years of no change, with even his hair and nails growing at a quarter o the speed they should of, and even Hermione couldn't think of another explanation.

So being the Master of Death made him immortal. Joy.

He managed three more years as an auror before the job started getting to him. He felt like he'd spent his whole life doing the same thing and wanted a change. The curious looks he started getting from his colleagues as he remained eternally eighteen didn't help.

And that was when Luna appeared.

He hadn't seen her in years. Part of it was that she had spent the first couple of years after Hogwarts traveling the world, looking for all manner of strange creatures, but then Harry had become a bit of a recluse wen he realised his aging problem and then she had disappeared.

The only contact anyone had received from Luna in years were the long, rambling letters she occasionally sent out, each with a different owl and that inevitably ended in a question about some obscure spell or plant or creature or artifact.

So when Luna turned up on his doorstep one evening, as enchantingly loony as ever, he was rather surprised. He wasn't surprised when she said she'd become as Unspeakable.

What followed was a highly convoluted and confusing conversation that basically came down to, 'Do you want a new job?" Harry had stared at her, confused and slightly incredulous. Then he'd cast _finite_ just in case this was actually some joke of the twins' (having not seen her in years, Harry likely wouldn't know the difference between Luna and a glamour, though the personality would be hard to reproduce) and when that had done nothing more than make Luna smile he'd slumped back in his chair and asked why on earth the Unspeakables wanted him.

Apparently his unchanging appearance hadn't been kept as quiet as he'd thought, and rumours of it had managed to seep down even to the lowest levels of the Ministry. The only known reason for someone to age so ridiculously slow was if their magical core was immense, Luna explained, and anyone with that much power was always approached with a job offer. Add to that his status as the Boy-Who-Lived and the fact that they were still trying to deal with objects they had taken from Voldemort's various stashes after the war, and he was the perfect candidate.

Harry had narrowed his eyes and asked plainly if accepting would result in being put under a microscope himself, but Luna had just turned to stare out the window and blithely replied that a full medical was conducted annually on every Unspeakable but that, no, he wouldn't be subjected to any extraneous tests unless he agreed to them.

It took three weeks to decide and another two to finalise the paperwork for his transfer. Ron was furious (though it was at least partially jealousy) that Harry was ditching him, but he was quickly beaten down by Hermione who, after tricking his new job out of him, was in equal parts ecstatic and completely jealous. Glad his friends were behind him, despite the way they had been slowly, sort of drifting apart over the last couple of years, and happy to have an old friend back, Harry had started his new job with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt in years.

Eight years later and that enthusiasm was still going strong. He'd had a crash course in arithmancy and runes the first year while working on some ancient tome that drove the reader insane, despite no one being able to understand a word in it, and had been successfully coached through learning occlumency (Luna was a much better teacher than Snape had ever been, and surely that said something) and eventually legilimency. The latter he wasn't so keen on but Luna and his senior Unspeakables had insisted that it was a good skill to have in their line of work so he had persevered. He wasn't particularly skilled in it, certainly no where near a Master's level, but he was good enough for his purposes.

The only time in his career as an Unspeakable that he had questioned his sanity in accepting the job was the four months he worked on the Veil. It was one of the few artifacts that had a constantly rotating research staff due to the prolonged effects of working near it - slower and more insidious than a Dementor but with much the same eventual affect - but Harry didn't even last the usual nine months before he was taken off the project. Flashbacks and panic attacks in the middle of running tests on a highly dangerous magical object were never a good idea. It was possibly also because the researchers had gotten sick of the way the Veil reacted to Harry - almost hyperactive, fluttering wildly, the calls from within much louder than usual. Needless to say he never worked on that project again.

Eight years, and he thought he'd seen it all: household items cursed six ways to Sunday; books that devoured the reader instead of the other war around; disembodied parts of every creature on Earth, including humans, that continued to work despite being locked away in a jar of preservative potion; and mysterious objects that they had no clue about.

Until now.

Aurors had been called, apparently by the muggle Prime Minister, after a large chunk of rock unlike anything ever seen on Earth had fallen out of the sky and into a muggle couple's backyard one day. It would almost pass as pure quartz, and almost had, except for three facts: it had fallen from the sky, it was the wrong size and shape for a natural stone never mind being polished smooth on one side and it was lit from within by a flickering spectrum of lights.

It had also caused several detectors in the Unspeakable offices (despite not being entirely sure what some of them were actually detecting) to go haywire, and Harry suspected the rather rapid hand over of the mystery object by the muggle researchers to the Unspeakables was exacerbated by his higher ups' curiosity.

Initially Harry wasn't allowed anywhere near the thing, as per usual for any kind of new object - the Unspeakables still weren't sure what to do about Harry's magic, since the fact that he still hadn't visibly aged suggested a greater magical core than any of them had ever planned for, and they were wary about having that kind of power around unknown objects. But two weeks later Harry was again approached by Luna, the current leader of the task force working with the 'Rainbow Stone' as they had named it (technically it was object USO63793 but nobody ever bothered with that name), who asked for his help. So he left his current project in the brain room and excitedly began working on his new project.

The data, once he was given a chance to look over it, was quite astounding. Initial tests had revealed a residue on the object that was reminiscent of a permanent portkey, but even that energy, once investigated, had been discovered to be something not quite like magic. The energy felt _old_, ancient almost, and the closest explanation anyone was able to come up with was a thousand-year old portkey that had overshot its course and ended up in the wrong place sans passengers (which wasn't a good thought but nobody had been reported missing and that wasn't their job).

Working on that theory, the Unspeakables started running more practical tests. Someone had been sent off to study the magical activation of a portkey and came back with a theory on how to use the Stone as a transportation device. The first to try it was an elderly man, even by wizarding standards, who had worked as an Unspeakable for longer than anyone could remember and who had no friends or family left. They put several trackers on him - spells, potions and various devices - and sent him off in the hope he'd turn up somewhere soon enough in good condition.

Astonishingly, he did. He'd been aiming for his home at the time of his departure and had landed only about twenty kilometres north of it slightly winded but no worse for the experience.

The next test had involved a young witch just out of training who had tried a forest almost twice as far away. She had been discovered almost fifty kilometres north of the forest she had been meaning to land in, about three hundred metres south of a sea cliff.

More tests had been run, the results indicating that the only physical problem caused by using the Stone was fatigue relative to the distance traveled - the man who had tried to portkey to the other side of the world had taken four days to wake from unconsciousness. There was also a problem that nobody ever managed to end up quite where they wanted to go - most appeared north of their goal, though the one Unspeakable who had tried for the North Pole had found themself slightly south in Greenland. Lastly and most curiously, the Stone never went with the person it transported.

There was light, just like a spell, and unexpected bad weather frequently appeared above the Ministry and the landing sites, but the Stone never moved from the pedestal it had been placed on. It made it easier to continue experimenting, not having to wait for the latest test subject to bring the Stone back, but it drove the Unspeakables wild trying to work out how it transported someone without going with them.

A new theory was bounced around, that the Stone, with its constant misses, was set to go to one particularly place. New tests were run, with people attempting to use the Stone without a specific destination in mind, and it was quickly discovered that how far one got towards this target destination was more of a problem that going off course.

More tests, this time of the people involved, showed that the size of one's magical core determined distance. The old man who had again gone first had made it little more than fifty kilometres from the Ministry before he was thrown from what they were calling the 'transport tunnel' with a rather disconcerting shock. Others had made it further, each with a larger core size than the last, and soon enough someone had brought out a map and started plotting the landing locations. It was rough, but the line cut across Britain and, when extrapolated, ended up somewhere across the Atlantic in Canada or Alaska.

The excitement this brought was almost ridiculous. Were the Americans messing around with a new type of magic, or had they unearthed an ancient form or transportation? Had they been dabbling in something that shouldn't have? If they had sent it over to Britain was it some kind of weapon or spying device? Luna took it all in stride, her own theories only slightly less conspiracy theorist and certainly no less sane, but Harry spent the next few days alternating between mad laughter and exhausted exasperation.

Then, of course, Luna had had an idea.

By this time, after being recruited and being put on the Rainbow Stone project and every thing else in between, Harry had learnt to be cautious of any ideas that came from Luna's head. Inspired, certainly, and quite often brilliant, but the Ravenclaw's mind worked in strange and potentially dangerous ways. This time was no better.

"You want me to _what_?"

Luna had smiled, her wand still swishing through the air above the Stone as she cast spell after spell on it. "Are the nargles blocking your hearing, Harry?"

"No, it's not- I don't-" Harry had spluttered, forcing himself to a stop for a moment to collect his thoughts. "You're serious about this?"

"Of course." Luna had replied, spells suddenly finished and wand already back in its customary place behind her ear. "You're the best person for the job, after all."

Harry had backed up, giving Luna room to walk over to a nearby desk so she could scribble down her observations, then followed her, arguing, "You want me to try the blind-target portkey spell with the Stone?"

"Yes."

"And you've decided I'm the best person because I supposedly have this insane magical core which, might I add, we have yet to find proof of."

"Oh, Harry," Luna had murmured, turning back to face him, hip braced against the desk. "Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

Harry had simply sighed, well aware he wouldn't win that argument, and ran a hand through his hair. "Fine. You want a powerful spell, I'll give it all I've got. But I'm warning you; nothing's going to come of it. I've been through all the tests and my core is barely above average - I'm not going to give you the result you're hoping for."

Luna had just smiled and turned back to her work, a soft, "We'll see," drifting through the doorway as Harry left.

That was how he had ended up in the position he was in now, standing a foot from the Rainbow Stone with sixteen trackers hidden somewhere on him and his holly wand loose in his hand. The other researchers, both those on the team and a few others who had come purely for curiosity's sake, had crowded around the outer edges of the room. A few were closer, running last minute tests with various spells and devices, one even double checking her calculations and wasn't that reassuring.

"Right," the witch had said, finally straightening from her papers, ink smudged across her fingers and cheeks. "You remember everything we discussed?"

"Yes," Harry had answered, anxious now and just wanting to get it all over and done with.

"You have the muggle trackers on your belt, and the spells are attached to you, your shirt shoes and cloak," the woman had continued, oblivious to Harry's reply and twisted her quill anxiously in her fingers. "We've tried to estimate your place of arrival according to the previous patterns and your core size and you should end up somewhere in Ireland - we've cleared it with their Ministry, so all you need to do is find the nearest wizarding settlement and floo to the Ministry and they'll get you back here. If we've misjudged and you land in water don't forget a bubble-head charm - there's gillyweed in the pouch on your belt if you need to do an extended swim and-"

"That's enough." Luna's soft voice had cut in, her steps quiet as she glided to a stop next to Harry. "You'll just make him nervous if you keep rambling on like that."

Harry had given her a wry smile. "Thanks Luna."

"No problem Harry." The girl - woman now - had smiled back, then moved to stand in her customary spot across the Stone from him. "You ready?"

Nodding, Harry had raised his wand, shoulders shifting as he took a deep breath.

"Remember, Harry," Luna had added, voice drawing his eyes up to meet hers once again, "you have to make this as powerful as possible. There's no point to it otherwise."

And suddenly Harry realised she knew - had probably seen the tattoo on the back of his neck and was eccentric enough to actually know what it meant - and that this test wasn't about his core size. It wasn't even truly about his magic. It was about the Hallows and seeing how one powerful, ancient magical artifact would react to another powerful, ancient magical artifact. And Harry had paused, drawing odd looks from the various researchers around the room, then slowly slid his holly wand into the sheath on his wrist and, with a flick of his hand and mind, drawn the Elder Wand from seemingly nowhere.

Cries broke out from around the room - Harry had never shown anyone the Hallows, let alone mentioned them - and several of the Unspeakables darted forward as if to stop him but Harry had always had a problem with following his impulses and with a quirk of his lips he had cast the spell, blinding light flaring around him on all sides.

The last thing he saw was Luna's smile, her hand raised in a jaunty little wave and her eyes echoing an almost reluctant sadness.

* * *

Across the universe a gold-clad, dark skinned sentinel jerked, a flash of unknown power skimming past the edge of his sight, aimed right at a very familiar planet.

* * *

A minute later, in a bustling city that was just settling down for the night, aglow with electrical lights, a body popped into existence, shards of something like quartz or ice falling all around it. Strays scattered in the face of the light that poured from the shape and just in time as the energy surrounding it suddenly condensed, drawing in on itself, then exploded outward in a shockwave that hit everything in a hundred kilometre radius.

* * *

High above in the skies, a hundred kilometres off the coast of New York, a floating fortress suddenly came alive with alarms and flashing red lights. Agents scrambled to discover the source of the alert.

One man, standing above the others on the bridge, let his eye close for a moment - just one second - before he was snapping to attention, orders flying quickfire from his mouth.

"I want a damage report and an explanation _yesterday_. Find out who the relevant people are and get them on the phone. We need to know what's happening. And for god's sake, someone shut off those goddamn alarms!"

The cacophony ceased, decreasing his headache slightly, and the lights flickered back to their normal white. The man raised one hand to rub at the bridge of his nose, glaring down at his screen as reports started rolling in, none of them good, and he felt resignation settle in.

"Hill!"

"Sir?"

"Find the Avengers. I don't care where they are or what they're doing or who they're doing it with, we need them here. _Now_."

"Yessir!"

It was going to be another big week.


	2. Of Meetings and Appearances

_Many thanks for the responses to the first chapter! I was rather overwhelmed.  
_

_To __**zancrowgod **(anon reviewer)_, _yes, I agree. The first scene here explains my solution to this. You have to realise that the last chapter was purely from his POV, and what he thought was true is what it said. I do that a lot__, so be prepared for things to contradict each other as the characters discover new facts, though they will almost always be accompanied by a lengthy explanation._

_Also, I must explain that __I don't usually read comics_. _Therefore most of the information I have is from __Marvel movies or TV shows, __Norse mythology __or what I can learn from __the internet.__ I hope I don't confuse anyone or get anything massively wrong. Please correct me if I do. _

_As always, enjoy. -BC  
_

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**Chapter Two: Of Meetings and Appearances  
**

When Harry next awoke it was not to the glittering snow the other Unspeakables had calculated he would end up in. It was, however, still freezing cold.

He was seated, it appeared, at one end of a stone table that was as wide as his arms' reach and stretched over twenty metres long. There was nothing fancy or intricate about it - just a solid stone slab - but Harry knew it was unusual at best when he could find no joins along its length. The chair he sat on was of a similar make and though he couldn't see much more than the armrests, somehow he knew it too was of one piece, rigid and straight.

The room around him was equally as strangely impressive, with an arched ceiling that towered some ten metres overhead and the walls made of brickwork done with a black-speckled grey stone that glittered in the light of the candles placed in sconces every few feet. Arched doorways, three to four metres in height, broke the monotony of the otherwise blank walls, one on either end and side of the hall.

All those details flashed through Harry's mind, cataloged in the way he had learnt as an Auror, but held little of his attention. For in the only other seat, at the far end of the table, sat a figure hidden by a deep forest green cloak.

Tendrils of dark hair - maybe black, though it shone with a light that made Harry think of silver - fell from the edges of the cowl. The figure themselves was distinctly feminine, the voluminous robe doing nothing to hide her body shape, but her size hinted at something more than human. Harry, dwarfed by the oversized room, figured the lady was at least a foot taller than him, though it was hard to guess when they were both sitting. Beside the table, chairs and candles, the only other objects in the room sat before the figure; a dish of polished bronze and a bone-handled knife that gleamed silver.

"You are awake, Master of Death."

Harry jumped at the title - he had been very careful to not let that slip to more than his closest friends. Even stranger was the voice that had spoken which, though obviously female in pitch and timbre, held an undercurrent of groaning glaciers and the whispering of the dead. He nodded, movements slow and careful. "Yes." And, because he had been through enough strange situations in his life to know that being polite sometimes saved lives, added, "May I ask who you are?"

"I am one of the entities your people call Death, though I do not take that title myself. Within the Nine Realms I am known as Hel, keeper of the underworlds of Helheim and Niflheim," the goddess spoke, voice echoing faintly throughout the stone room.

There was a beat of silence as Harry's brain struggled to comprehend the situation - and the likelihood of it being a prank - but then shock set in and Harry could hear his heart beating in his ears. It was something he had half been expecting - had even joked about with Ron - but ever since becoming the Master of Death he had always entertained the hope that owning the Hallows was as far as it went. Apparently not.

"Am I dead then?"

"No," Hel replied, her silhouette shifting slightly. "In Helheim the dead roam the fields of my realm or suffer upon the shore of Náströnd. This is Éljúðnir, the hall where celebrations and deliberations are held. I was given orders to pull your soul here to protect it as your body traveled across the Nine Realms."

"Orders?"

"From Death," Hel explained. Seeing Harry's confusion she shifted again and added, "The objects which give you your power as Master of Death were created by Death itself, an entity which rarely speaks aloud. As an agent of Death, I have been ordered to temporarily play messenger and _saviour." _On the last word her voice dripped with sarcasm and Harry shivered. Potential new evil mastermind, check. "As a mortal, your soul would not have survived the journey without my intervention."

Harry frowned, mind turning over the several questions that raised - taking note to ask Death and why his soul had been in danger from a simple portkey jump - before voicing the most pressing. "I thought I was immortal now?"

"No," Hel repeated. "Life and death are equal parts of the balance which sustains the universe and are not unbalanced lightly. Only Death itself can grant any being immunity, and the requirements are great."

"But I've stopped aging!" Harry exclaimed, waving one hand at himself. He quickly lowered his voice when he remembered where he was, continuing with a less agitated and more pleading tone. "I'm in my thirties yet I still look like I did at seventeen. "

Hel leaned back, relaxing against her chair, and Harry could almost feel her amusement. "You would find, if you had a way of measuring it, that you have aged. It is only that the time elapsed is days rather than years that has you believing such things."

Harry froze, the idea that he would live forever, having only just truly begun to sink in, completely shattered within the seconds he took to comprehend it. Then a new question arose. "Days? But that's still-"

"You are not immortal, Harry Potter. You have simply been granted an extended lifetime, that of one of my Asgardian counterparts. It is not, however, without stipulations."

"A catch?" Harry groaned, though he tried to stifle the sound. "Of course there is."

The shadowed cowl shifted slightly and Harry could have sworn he heard a brief, soft laugh.

"The Hallows," Hel announced and Harry felt a tingle run through the tattoo on the his neck, "are both the source of and limiter to that life. They hold great power and with any power comes a price. Separately, their cost is dangerous, if little. Combined, that price is even greater."

"Wait. Price?" Harry leaned forward slightly, raising one hand to lay it on the table, fingers clenched in a fist. "I didn't know there was any price for using the Hallows."

Another shift of the robe and Harry was sure that this time Hel had shrugged. "The rules of their use have fallen from common knowledge over the centuries but the wiser of their wielders usually managed to discern the prices themselves. It is not my nor any agent of Death's responsibility to mother every fool who thinks himself worthy of their power."

When Harry didn't respond, just continued to stare, Hel's shoulders shifted slightly again and she flicked a hand. A shock, not entirely pleasant, ran through the back of Harry's neck and the Hallows appeared between them, floating above the table and lit with a blue-white sheen that seemed to radiate from the walls.

"The Cloak, by hiding one from even Death's eyes, makes the wearer's life all the brighter once the Cloak is no longer in use. In contrast the Ring, when calling the dead, takes the required life from the wielder. The Wand..." and here she paused, apparently musing over the best way to explain. "It is often said that there are two ways to win a battle: by luck or by strength. The Wand gives the wielder one at the cost of the other."

Harry's mind whirled. He thought of the Peverell brothers, of their lives and demises. He thought of how the wizarding world's attention had always followed him, almost creepily so, growing stronger over the years. Of how it seemed like everyone at least knew of his family, his father. He thought of the Gaunts, of how the family had spiraled down into dark madness. And he thought of Dumbledore, brilliant and wise and powerful, who had somehow succumbed to a compulsion spell long enough to slide the cursed Ring onto a finger, condemning himself to death.

He remembered Voldemort, more monster than human, and all that he had lost in his search for power. Harry shuddered at the thought of what the Hallows could have done to him had he been tempted to use them more.

"The combined price," Hel continued, seemingly oblivious to Harry's mental train crash, "is slightly different."

"What?" Harry exclaimed, hating the way his voice cracked slightly.

The Hallows disappeared again, the flash of warmth on the back of his neck making his fingers curl, and Hel was silent for a minute. When she finally spoke, the rumbling undertone was even more pronounced.

"Many have sought the Hallows since they were first gifted them to your ancestors, Harry Potter, and oft times for one of two reasons: power or immortality. To those who demand both no consolation is offered, but to those who wish for only one there is a compromise: mastering all three Hallows releases the wielder from the individual costs and grants a long life, but the cost of using the power of the Hallows - of using the power of Death - is Life."

Hel waited as Harry once again froze, cogs turning. He had never wanted immortality and while power was nice he had never craved it either. And if he was right, if he had understood correctly -

"Power or near-immortality," he voiced, a slight hint of excitement in his tone. "You make them choose: an extremely long life in exchange for never using the power of the Hallows or power in exchange for life."

A slightly nod of her head was Hel's reply. "Indeed. There are, however, still the rules of conquest and of magic and nature that govern the Hallows' power," she continued, moving quickly onto the new subject. "Should you be bested in combat and all three Hallows removed from your person, your Mastery over them shall cease and your aging shall return to that which it was. You must also understand although you can recover from most fatal injuries, there is a limit. Anything irreparable - severe head or spinal wounds, decapitation or complete destruction of the body - will be permanently fatal. Any healable wound Death's power will negate, though a severed limb will not be reattached or replaced."

A minute passed while Harry considered Hel's words, before a small smile broke across his face. "So the more I use the Hallows the shorter I'll live. And I can heal from almost any injury?"

"Yes."

A beat, then-

"Brilliant!"

Hel's robe shifted again - Harry thought he heard another laugh - as her green-gloved hands appeared from where they had been resting in her lap, clasped together on top of the table.

Courage bolstered by Hel's hospitality so far and with the last topic seemingly closed, Harry decided to ask the other question he had had. "Before you said I was here because my body was traveling. What did you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said," Hel replied, and for the first time Harry could hear a hint of emotion in her voice. It sounded almost like amusement with a tinge of annoyance. "Your use of the Elder Wand on the Bifrost shard you were studying triggered the creation of a bridge between the dimensions. The Bifrost wished to return to its rightful place and the Asgardian power in the Elder Wand facilitated that. Currently your body is being pulled along the bridge but I rescued your soul from the pain it would otherwise be in and brought you here temporarily."

So the Rainbow Stone was some kind of transportation device - the Bifrost, if he remembered correctly, was how the Asgardian gods of the Norse myths traveled between the Nine Realms that made up the universe. But it belonged in Asgard, with Heimdall. So-

"I'm being transported to Asgard?" Harry asked, worry in his voice. He had only wanted to run the test - to help his colleagues figure out what the Rainbow Stone was. If it sent him off to an entirely different Realm, how was he going to get home? He had friends - Luna, especially lately, and Hermione, Ron, Neville and all the others, despite how they had drifted apart in recent years. If- _When_ he got home he was going to make sure to catch up with everyone. If he ended up in a Realm of gods-

"No."

With that one word relief washed through Harry. His body relaxed, shoulders he hadn't realised he'd tensed rolling back into a more comfortable position. But then-

"But you are not going home either."

Harry stilled again. Not to Asgard and not home. And Hel had said that she had brought his soul to Helheim while his body was traveling so not here ether. That didn't leave many options.

"Then, where...?"

"You will see," Hel replied. She stood as two others - similarly cloaked but with their hoods down - entered the room. Hel swept the length of the hall in quick strides, a vague scent of rotting flesh following her. "It is time for you to leave, Harry Potter." She stopped behind his chair and Harry tensed as her fingers appeared in the edges of his vision, hands an inch from each side of his head and breath washing over his cheek as Hel whispered in his ear.

"The Norns have woven you a fate to rival the greatest tapestries and have flung the strands far further than you could ever have imagined, Harry Potter. Be careful not to become a fool of a puppet who only dances obediently on his strings. Remember that nothing will be as you expect it to be. Question everything. And above all, make sure to remain true to yourself, oh_ Master of Death_."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, questions swarming through his brain, but a flash of cold ran through his head from between Hel's splayed fingers and darkness closed across his vision. The last thing he saw was the two figures at the the end of the hall - servants, his mind supplied, as he glanced between the man and the woman - bow as the candles guttered and died.

* * *

Landing on solid ground again wasn't particularly fun. Harry didn't even bother to open his eyes at first, instead using his Aurors tricks to catalogue his surroundings.

His body hurt, though he didn't seem to have broken any bones. It felt rather like the aftermath of a Quidditch match, complete with aching muscles and a ten foot fall from his broom. At speed.

The noise of his new location wasn't helping the raging headache he had either, though the sounds were thankfully muted - apparently he'd ended up somewhere slightly enclosed. The rumbling of car engines, the music playing somewhere nearby and the feel of asphalt under his back all pointed to this place being some kind of city.

Harry let his eyes flutter open then, groaning lowly as he levered himself into a sitting position. His first glance around only confirmed his theory. He had landed in what looked like a service lane between two multi-storey brick buildings which opened out onto a four lane street with a bakehouse and grill on the other side.

The only thing that didn't add up was the lack of light. Glancing up revealed thousands of stars - far more than he should be able to see in a city - and the only reason he had been able to identify the bakehouse was by the light of the cars going past every half a minute or so. Even in a small city, surely streetlights were a requirement?

That lead to the next problem - where the hell was he? Hel had said it wasn't home and the fact that he hadn't been aiming for anything more specific than 'somewhere on Earth' suggested that he had somehow managed the impossible and ended up on a completely different planet. Which looked rather like his own, so far.

With another groan Harry pushed himself up into a crouch then to a standing position. He immediately stumbled sideways into a wall and took a minute to just stand there gripping the rough bricks and catching his breath. God, if this was what transplanetal travel did to you he didn't want to be trying it again anytime soon.

Unless he could go home. He'd put up with the cruciatus for that.

Stumbling the twelve metres to the end of the alley was ridiculously painful but also unfortunately necessary. He couldn't do anything until he knew where he was.

His first glance of the street beyond was baffling. Shops, with the occasional unit block interspersed between them, stretched as far as he could see. Everything one could ever need appeared to exist on that one street, from the bar to his right and the flower shop two down and across from it to the dozen clothing stores to his left. It looked like a typical downtown street. Except for one problem.

There were no lights.

On second glance Harry amended that to no working electronics. The streetlights were dead, the shop signs black, the billboards blank and the flats were all either dark or held the flickering light of candles. And yet there was still plenty of people - Harry could hear them talking and arguing in almost every unit. Even looking up, beyond the street, to the skyscrapers that towered not far away revealed only more darkness.

Why? A city as big as this, what could possibly cause a total blackout? Surely several electricity grids and backup systems had been built to prevent an event such as this. So why? It almost reminded him of the time one of the Unspeakables' experiments had done awry and they'd-

Blacked out twenty square kilometres of London.

Harry swore under his breath and ducked back into the alley as he heard police sirens close by. Turning his mind inward - another Auror tick - Harry almost growled in frustration. His magical core was severely depleted, enough that it would take days of rest to restore fully. That, combined with the state of the city, left one highly likely and rather annoying conclusion: landing wherever he was had caused his magic to explode, shorting out every piece of technology in who knew how many miles.

The sirens sounded again, much closer, and Harry knew he had to get out of there. It wouldn't take them long to figure out the epicentre of the blast and a random stranger with no identification or records would be suspicious at best.

Casting around for the best escape route, Harry shrank back a few more steps, checked there was no one looking and quickly turned on the spot. With a sharp crack he was gone, appearing on the roof of the six storey building across the street. He glanced around, carefully choosing his next target, then apparated again.

By the time the authorities arrived Harry was long gone and the only evidence left of his presence were the shards of shattered Bifrost scattered around where he had landed.

* * *

Tony Stark had been working on a new insulation system for the Iron Man suit's electronics - the data retrieved from his brief trip into space a month ago during the Chitauri invasion had been quite educational - when the lights had flickered. It had barely been two seconds of darkness but it had been enough to spark a brief moment of worry. Tony had run a manual scan of the building from his desk - Jarvis had been muted half an hour ago after trying to blackmail Tony into eating dinner - and had killed the next two minutes by making himself a cup of coffee and waving Dummy away from a stack of notes he'd been trying to 'clean'. He had just taken a sip when the results had come in and promptly choked on the hot liquid, all thoughts of hacking NASA's database for design ideas forgotten.

"Jarvis! What the hell just happened?"

"It appears, sir," the British-sounding AI responded, "that something has interfered with the arc reactor prototype. It has gone into emergency shut down and we're currently running on electricity from the back up generators in the basement."

"I know that!" Tony snapped, fingers flying across his many screens. "But how? Why? And why aren't we on grid electricity? Those generators are ancient!"

"The generators are only a few weeks old, sir. They can power the main areas of the tower for three days before they will need to be replaced. For now, we are using them because the local electrical grid is not responding. I can only assume that whatever hit the arc reactor also took out the main Manhattan electricity grids."

"Like I said: ancient. Remind me not to buy from that company again. And to find a way to update the grid." Tony spun his chair, sliding from one desk to another with the ease of practice. "What can you tell me about what happened to the arc reactor?"

Jarvis was silent for a few seconds before several new windows appeared on Tony's screens. "Four minutes and twenty-three seconds ago a wave of energy washed across Manhattan and the surrounding areas of New York, shorting out all electricity in its path. Seventy-three percent of Manhattan is currently without power. The energy appears to be similar to an EMP, but the signature is not on any of our records."

Tony paused, momentarily impressed at the damage done to the city by a simple energy pulse, then whirled into action. "Search some databases - SHIELD, NASA, you name it. See if you can't find a match. I'm gonna try to locate the source of the pulse."

"Yes sir. Decryption of SHIELD's secure archives estimated at forty-three minutes."

"Good. Send me any data on the black out. A time lapse of its progress across the city would be good. And a recorded satellite feed of the affected area."

More windows appeared on Tony's screens and he quickly flicked through them, closing everything he thought unnecessary. He couldn't help but whistle when he saw the current state of the city - an almost perfect circle of darkness slightly to the coast side of central New York. That was going to cause trouble in the morning.

Pausing the feed ten seconds after the pulse, Tony set about plotting co-ordinates around the edge of the black out zone. A minute later he sat back, regarded his map with satisfaction and called out, "Jarvis, triangulate the point of origin from the border co-ordinates, will you?"

"Of course sir. Cross-referencing satellite feed with geographical- Sir, Director Fury is on the phone."

"Tell him I'm busy."

"Sir, he says it's urgent." A pause, then, "It's about New York."

Tony spun again, chair sliding across the floor, and came to a stop just as one of his larger screens flickered to life with a life-sized image of Fury's head.

"Director," Tony greeted, grabbing his almost-forgotten coffee and taking a sip. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Have you looked out a window in the last ten minutes Stark?" Fury asked, voice controlled and eyes constantly flickering away from the camera - Tony assumed he was keeping track of his screens.

"Nope, but I did get all this wonderful data about a widespread electrical black out. Would that have anything to do with your call?"

"Then you already know about the pseudo-EMP that took out most of Manhattan's electrical systems. Good. Pack up anything you might need and be ready in half an hour. Agent Romanoff's bringing a quinjet to pick you up."

"Hey, hey, hey. You expect me to just drop everything and come running? I have projects to do - suit upgrades, arc rector upgrades, getting Pepper a present in apology for ditching her at that party last night-"

"Leave it, Stark. We have an unknown energy that could potentially be used to bring entire cities to a standstill. You need to be here now-" He paused, head swiveling to look at someone off to the side. There was a muttered conversation - Tony amused himself by mentally photographing the way Fury's face tightened in anger and perhaps worry - then Fury was turning back, fingers dancing over the screen in front of him. "Scratch that. They've found something."

"A source?" Tony had already swiveled back to his other screens, zooming in the satellite feed on the spot Jarvis had triangulated.

"The shards of some kind of crystal. They wouldn't have thought anything of it except that one of our agents who used to work with the Tesseract got suspicious. Preliminary tests say it's not from Earth."

"Mysterious alien crystals and a massive black out. Yeah, sounds about right. What'd you want me to do?"

"Pack up. Get Banner. He's staying with you, isn't he?"

"He's-" Tony glanced at the clock and, noting the time, amended, "Probably not in his lab. Jarvis, wake him up. Explain what's happening."

"Yes sir."

"Romanoff will be there in twenty-six minutes. An agent is bringing some of the shards to you. Wait until you've got them and run any tests you can on the quinjet, understand?"

"Yeah, got it. If that's all..."

"And Stark?" Fury looked straight at the camera, expression serious. "Do not conduct any experiments on the shards unless Banner okays them."

The screen went blank.


	3. Of Mysteries and Problems

_Hi all! New chapter, new **warning**: __there is __**language**__ here that is inappropriate for minors/etc. _

_Many thanks to everyone who reviewed, alerted, favourited and added OHAE to communities! I was astounded, and I think you broke my email inbox at one point. You motivate me so much, so enjoy! -BC  
_

* * *

**Chapter Three: Of Mysteries and Problems**

Arriving at the Helicarrier was almost nostalgic. It was in the air already but stationary, and Bruce couldn't help but glance over the edge in the same way he and Steve had done the first time. The several hundred feet drop was almost as impressive as seeing gigantic turbines appear out of the sea.

"Doc?"

Bruce sent Natasha a faint smile, memories of the last time he had seen her on the ship flashing through his mind - she had been fine, thank god, but he had refused to return, afraid of a repeat - and turned to follow her and Tony into the Helicarrier's labyrinth of passageways. Behind them several agents were busy unloading the equipment Tony and Bruce had brought with them from the quinjet, loading it all onto trolleys to be wheeled down to one of the labs.

"Natasha, Doctor Banner, Stark!"

The three Avengers turned, smiling, as Steve jogged up to meet them.

"How have you been?" he asked, draping a towel over his shoulder. By his clothes he had just come from the gym and hadn't had a chance to change yet.

"Rodgers!" Tony exclaimed, slinging an arm around Steve's shoulders. "Well, thanks. Been upgrading my suit for space flight. You?"

Steve grinned, returning Bruce's acknowledging nod and Natasha's smile. "Good. I believe I hold the record for breaking the most punching bags. Supplies had to order more."

"'Hold'?" Natasha repeated dryly. "More like smashed. You go through six a day. Fury's been trying to decide if you need your own budget."

Tony laughed at that, clapping Steve on the back roughly. "Remind me to buy you a drink next time we're out."

Steve nodded, paused, then abruptly grew serious. "Joking aside, anyone know why we're assembling? I just got told to get to the bridge pronto." He was looking mainly at Natasha but she simply tipped her head at Bruce's in reply.

The doctor grimaced at the reminder and hefted the metal briefcase he was carrying. "Potential alien tech and an unknown energy that just sent most of Manhattan into a mass black out."

Rodgers couldn't help staring at the case with trepidation. "Not another Tesseract is it?"

"God, I hope not," Natasha muttered with her own glare at the case. "Come on. The director doesn't like waiting."

The bridge was in chaos. Even as the four Avengers settled into their seats agents kept running past, stacks of paper, communicators and small computers in hand. Fury was overseeing it all from his station, body tense, but he turned to regard them after a moment. "Agent Romanoff, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Yeah, what's with that?" Tony asked, rolling a pen through his fingers. "Are we seriously gonna be one of those teams that only meets up when things go wrong? Where's the fun in that?"

"You had a party last week," Steve reminded him with only a hint of exasperation in his voice. Tony just scowled.

"But Natasha and Clint weren't there! And the time before that, you were absent. I mean the whole team, all at once."

"Speaking of Clint..." Natasha started, but the door slid open behind her and said archer stepped into the room.

"Right here." He too was in training gear, and he set his bow and quiver on the table as he sat. "Sorry. I was in the range when the call came in."

Tony smirked but before he could comment Fury cut in. "Now that we're all here; Doctor, if you please?"

Bruce smiled nervously as he lifted the metal case onto the table, sliding it to the centre so they could all see. He popped the locks then sat back, watching as the lid rose up of its own accord. A second, cloth protective layer underneath was peeled back by Fury then he carefully, slowly, lifted from the case a small transparent box. Inside sat an inch by half-inch shard of almost clear crystal that reflected within its depths every colour imaginable.

Hawkeye immediately sat back in his chair, memories of strange rocks still fresh in his mind. Natasha and Steve leant forward, but their expressions were more worry than interested. Bruce was a ball of nerves, obvious by the way he kept clenching his hands and Tony's forced nonchalance was ruined by his sharp eyes and tense posture.

"What is that?" Steve asked, voice hostile.

"That's the problem," Fury admitted, eying the shard with distaste. "We don't know."

"Don't-" Clint choked. "Last time we messed with an unknown object Loki used it to open a portal to who-knows-where and let in an alien army as part of his plan to take over the world!"

"This is different." When everyone turned to stare at Bruce he stammered, "I mean, it's not the Tesseract. There's some similarities between the two energy signatures but nowhere near enough to hypothesise that it's anything like the Tesseract. The crystal itself is completely different too."

"And it's dying."

Clint studied Tony's smirk with narrow eyes. "Dying?"

"It took thirty-one minutes to get here on the quinjet. Between leaving my tower and landing on the Helicarrier the energy output of that thing dropped by one-point-seven percent. Jarvis is monitoring it."

"No offense," Natasha interjected, "but didn't the Tesseract's energy levels fluctuate just before Loki turned it into a portal?"

"Yes, _fluctuated_. There's a big difference," Tony emphasised, flipping his phone around so they could all see the graph on the screen. "But this has been mostly linear - exponential, potentially, but I don't have enough data yet to be sure."

"So it's not the Tesseract and it's... dying," Steve summarised. "What's the bad news?"

Fury smiled grimly. He returned to his bank of computers, still holding the shard, and used a flick of a finger to send a window over to their screens on the table. It was a looped satellite feed of the energy pulse hitting New York, a vague shimmer visible briefly and quickly followed by darkness swallowing Manhattan. Natasha had seen the results from the air and Tony had been watching his own feeds of the incident but to the others it was a shock. Even Bruce, who had been too lost in his thoughts and tests to register more than a glimpse of the dark city, stared at the video in horror.

In the ensuing silence, as each Avenger watched the loop several times over, Fury could almost see the will - the want - the _need_ - to fight rise up in each one of them. If it hadn't been such a dire situation he would have smiled.

"At 11:53 pm," Fury announced, drawing their attention once more, "a massive energy source appeared in the middle of Manhattan, roughly halfway between Stark Tower and Central Park. Seven seconds later that energy exploded, covering an area with a radius of just under one hundred kilometres. Everything electrical in the first twenty kilometres shorted out or combusted, including the main electrical grid. Electrical issues continue to be reported across the rest of the affected zone. This," and he held up the box, "is one of several dozen shards of an unknown crystal that were found at what is believed to be the epicentre of the explosion."

All but Tony looked dumbfounded and shocked. Natasha and Clint hid it well, years of training automatically covering any mildly strong emotion, but it was still there in the way Clint's shoulders tensed, his hand dropping to sit beside his bow on the table, and Natasha was suddenly far too interested in the feed, her face blank. Bruce had simply slumped and looked vaguely as if he had sunk into some kind of semi-trance, and the Captain had slipped out of his military-stiff posture, his mouth falling open just the slightest.

Tony snickered to himself, playing with the screen in front of him - something that looked suspiciously like a download bar, but Fury decided to save himself the headache and just ignore it.

"So far we've managed to find only one clue - a remotely controlled security camera in the area managed to record the event for roughly four seconds before it died. Thankfully the video feed is streamed directly to a computer just outside of the damage zone, and we were able to trace the connection." Another flick and a new video loop appeared on their screens. It showed an alley between two buildings, sparsely decorated with grime and rubbish, that was suddenly lit up a blinding flash of mostly-white light. Two seconds later the light had cleared enough for a shadow to be seen - a dark form lying on the ground - then static broke across the screen and the loop restarted.

Naturally, it was Natasha who recognised the blur first.

"A person?"

"We think so," Fury replied, turning back to his screens to peruse the new reports that had arrived in the last five minutes. "We've got techs, forensics and several other experts working on it as we speak. Hopefully we'll find a match soon." The _and if we don't, god help us, because that thing might not even be human_ was left unsaid, but they all understood it just fine. After Loki and the Chitauri, just over a month ago, no one was taking any risks.

"So. What do you need us to do?" The Captain, ever the sensible one, had apparently gone back to his recently discovered mantra of 'if you don't understand it, smash it'. Fury would be worried he had been spending too much time with the Hulk if he didn't know that Banner hadn't lost control since the invasion. 24/7 surveillance did wonders for his blood pressure.

"Banner and Stark have _temporary_ free range of all files pertaining to the shard and the energy it emitted in the hope they can figure out just what the hell that thing did," Fury stubbornly ignored the excited woop from Tony, "and the instant we have a face for our target Agents Barton and Romanoff will be on ground duty, tracking him down. Should the target turn out to be hostile, Stark, Rogers - you're on call.

"For now though, Captain, I have another mission for you." Hill swept over with a phone in hand, dropped it on the table in front of Steve and disappeared again. At Steve's confused expression and Stark's temporarily distracted attention, Fury explained, "That is your new phone, Captain. Apart from all the standard functions - which I'm sure Stark would be all two happy to show you - it also has a GPS loaded with SHIELD's best maps of Manhattan and a digital law enforcement badge which should get you almost anywhere." Rogers' confusion was almost cute, honestly. Stark's excitement, not so much. "We want you to have a look on the ground, Captain. I know you've spent the last month reacquainting yourself with the city's streets - now I want you to use that knowledge. Dig around, talk to people, see if anyone saw anything suspicious. I'll have agents out doing the same thing but the public has a certain regard for Captain America that faceless suits never get. You find anything, mark it on one of the maps in the GPS. If it's important, send a message through. You've got a direct line to my desk there." A pause, then, "And no, Stark, you can't have one."

Ignoring Stark's pouting and Barton's muffled snickers, Fury glanced around. Banner already had that zoned-out look that meant he was lost in some scientific theorem and Romanoff seemed to be trying to memorise every detail of both video loops. Rogers was already playing with the phone - it had been simplified for the man so hopefully he wouldn't get too lost - and Stark has been redirected back to his own phone by a muttering Jarvis.

"Stark, Banner - you've got the same lab as last time. Rogers - there's a quinjet waiting for you in the hangar. Dismissed."

* * *

Harry managed seven careful apparitions before he felt his core start to truly give out. He had removed his heavy overcoat after the third jump, stripping back to a t-shirt and dragon hide jacket that, despite being a bit too warm, worked far too well as armour to be ditched that easily, but his body was pulsing with fever-heat, which was not a good sign. The following four, after tucking his overcoat into a magically-expanded inner pocket of his jacket alongside some research notes, had been almost painful in the way they had pulled at his magical core, igniting a dull pain behind his eyes but he had persevered until it had truly gotten to be too much.

Despite his instincts screaming at him to get as far away as his arrival point as possible - instincts borne of ten years with the Dursleys, honed by seven years of running from Voldemort and refined by eight years as an Auror - Harry had learnt long ago to listen to his magic. Seven jumps was far enough, according to the headache pounding away at his skull, the twisting in his chest and the sweat beading on his brow, so Harry apparated to one particularly tall nearby building, surveyed the surrounding area with a blurry gaze and apparated one last time.

His final landing, rough as it was, put him in a park in the middle of the city. A _massive_ park. Harry shook his head at the strangeness of muggles - though he approved, in this case - but that sent his head spinning so he collapsed against a nearby tree with a groan.

It took another thirty seconds before his legs gave out, his back sliding painfully down the rough bark. He spared a moment to mentally check himself over for splinching, Auror training still running half his actions, but a roar was building in his head that would not be ignored, would not be pushed aside and would not be trivialised.

_What. _

_The. _

_Fuck!?_

_He was- Luna, and the lab, and the Stone and- It had just been- then Hel and the message and the Hallows- Using the Wand- Falling through a glittering tunnel-Luna had _smiled-_ Landing; pain, pain, pain- Darkness and bright lights- Waking, dark city- Running, apparating- _

There were a million things wrong with this situation! He wasn't anywhere near home, potentially even on another _planet._ He didn't know the first thing about this place or its people! Everyone back home would be looking for him- Until he knew what was happening he couldn't let himself be found- People would miss him, would _cry_, back home - he had to find some way to _survive_ - what if something _happened_ to his _friends_ - what if this world was _hostile_ they might think he was _dead_ oh _god _hecould_die-_

A flash of heat across the back of his neck shocked Harry out of his panicking enough to realise he was being ridiculous and was almost hyperventilating. His hands were shaking too, one braced against the ground, fingers digging into the dirt, and the other tangled painfully in his hair. Gradually registering the pain, recognising the fact that unthinkingly tearing his hair out was a bad thing, slowly Harry forced himself to take deep breaths and started shoving the encroaching panic away with all his meager occlumency skill. Eventually the shaking stilled and he was able to unclench his fingers from his scalp, pull his nails from the dirt, and drop both hands into his lap.

Merlin. His life was so messed up. Apparently the prophecy and Voldemort hadn't been enough to satisfy Fate - or Fates, if what Hel had said about the three Norns was true - and even being the Master of Death hadn't earned him a reprieve. Now he was who-knew-where in who-knew-what world at who-knew-what time and all he had on him-

Harry frowned, the edge of panic creeping back into his mind, and frantically patted down his pockets. His movements slowed as he found his belonging - his wand was still in its holster on his wrist, thankfully, and his money pouch - what little good that would do in another world - was tucked in a pants pocket. After a careful glance around he pulled his trunk from another, unshrinking it and sighing in relief when a quick check of its contents revealed everything to still be there. As an Unspeakable Harry had gotten used to working odd hours in odd places on odd projects and had quickly taken the advice of a senior Unspeakable and started keeping several changes of clothes, some long-life rations, various identifying papers (mostly muggle, and not entirely legal) and his library on him at all times. It had come in handy more than once, particularly not having to run home every time he wanted to check something, but he had never been gladder of it until that moment.

So. He was in an unknown world with clothes, books, some food, papers, his wand and the Hallows. That wasn't too bad. Now all he needed was a plan; some way to survive until he could work out where he was, what to do and, hopefully, how to get home.

The next problem was investigating wherever he was. There was still a chance he was on Earth - his Earth - but Hel's message had sounded ominous and, frankly, since when was his life ever simple. The most likely theory was this he was on another planet which, despite being quite brilliant as a hypothetical, was absolutely terrifying. He had seen plenty of signs in English so at least the language would be familiar; translation charms were tricky at the best of time. When, where and the state of the world could probably be found in a newspaper or whatever the equivalent was, but he would have to wait until morning for that. And he would need money, which could be difficult. Hopefully this was Earth - or at least another version of it - and he would be able to change what little muggle money he had for whatever the local currency was. If necessary later, he could even sell some galleons - as mostly gold they tended to fetched quite a bit in the muggle world.

But the most pressing issue, apart from surviving in a foreign place after the backlash he knew his arrival had probably created, was to try to find a magical community. If there was, not only did it increase the chances that this was his Earth but it also meant a potential source of help. Turning to muggles, without knowing if magic was common in this world, could end up very badly. If there wasn't - if there was no magic in this world - well...

Pulling his mind from those thoughts before he could descend into another panic attack, Harry pushed himself up into a crouch, testing the strength of his legs. When they held he rose to a standing position, keeping a watchful eye on his surroundings. Apparating across the roof tops had been fairly safe, but there was no way he could keep apparating or sustain a disillusionment charm long enough to find somewhere safe to crash for the night. The pulsing in his head and the waterfall beginning to wash over his gaze told him he would have to find somewhere soon, too, so Harry quickly called the Cloak, the flare of heat across the Hallows tattoo on his neck and in his head reassuringly familiar, and felt a sense of security fall over him with the shimmering material.

A hideout, then, Harry reminded himself through the growing fuzziness in his brain. Somewhere he could sleep safely and close to shops so he could find a newspaper tomorrow. A currency exchange too, then he could go investigating.

Tomorrow, after all, couldn't possibly be worse than today.


	4. Of Names and Discoveries

_Hello. As always, many thanks to everyone! Chapter dedicated to __**Reineserpent**__ for the amazing idea - this chapter wouldn't be half as amusing without it, and to __**Yinngoh**__ who's fic __**Visiting the Anomalies of America**__ (HP/X-Men crossover) I strongly recommend. One of my favourites, definitely!_

_Completely made up tech names by the way. If you know the proper names, please let me know. _

_Enjoy! -BC  
_

* * *

**Chapter Four: Of Names and Discoveries**

"Sir."

Fury turned gave his screens one last glance then turned, scowling, to regard the recruit with a narrowed eye. "Yes?"

"We found a match, sir." The kid - seriously, he was hardly twenty - handed over a datascreen that was currently showing two pictures - a reconstructed image of the mysterious figure from the black out explosion and the other a photo of a man in his late teens with green eyes and messy black hair. He was in a soccer uniform, the image having obviously been cropped from a college team photo.

"Who is he?" Fury demanded, already flicking through the various files stored on the small portable computer.

"Harry James Potter, sir. A physicist based in London who occasionally travels for work. He's never been involved in any electromagnetic-related projects but he does have the potential knowledge and financial resources to put something together in his spare time."

"Current location?"

"Well, that's one of the problems, sir," the recruit replied with a slightly wary look. "He hasn't been outside of London in eight months, and the security videos at his lab show he's been in every day for the last two weeks."

Frowning, Fury glanced over the tracking data, confirming the man's alibi. "You said 'problems'. What else is there?"

The recruit shrank back into himself slightly. Conscripted, then, and not willingly delivering the report. "That photo of Harry Potter is a ninety-four percent match, sir. Ninety-seven-point-five when filtered to a similar resolution as the security video. The date though... Sir, both the reconstructed image and the match place the target at seventeen or eighteen years old."

"And?" A sense of impending doom - a headache, in other words - was sinking Fury's stomach as the pieces clicked into place, but he needed someone else to say it.

Gulping, the recruit leaned forward to flick through the open screens until three photos appeared, sided by side: the reconstruction, the college photo and a new one of an older man in a white lab coat. "Sir," the recruit began, voice slightly nervous, "Harry Potter was born in 1980. He's currently thirty-four years old."

Fury let his eye fall closed for a moment, a quick prayer for _something_ to go right for once, then he was glaring fiercely at the data once more and snapping orders.

"You, get back to the lab. Send everything you have through to me and keep working, see if there's a better match out there somewhere. Hill!"

"Yes sir?" Agent Hill appeared from behind a screen, calmly waiting for orders.

"Get me Rogers, Romanoff and Barton. They've got a target to track down."

* * *

Tea and chocolate (in the form of a croissant) still fixed everything apparently, even in another world. And that was almost certain now - after five days of investigating he was beginning to finally convince himself that this wasn't his world. It looked quite similar, the small cafe he was relaxing in now a prime example, but there were too many signs to ignore.

It had taken two days to find a newspaper due to the mass blackout that Harry guiltily realised was probably his fault. The insane amount of magic used in his arrival - evidenced by his practically empty magical core - had exploded across the city in a way he hadn't known was possible and thrown the entire city into chaos - a city, Harry had noticed, that seemed to have just started healing after a recent disaster.

Essential services - hospitals, police stations, certain government buildings and a select few shops - had managed to find generators fairly quickly and had been mostly back on line within twenty-four hours. A couple of days later and most of the larger shops and community centres had found their own generators, but basic public transport and the street lights on the main thoroughfares had only come on the day before. Five days after the event itself, most residential areas were still without power and likely would be for some time yet. The newspapers shipped in from outside the city were having a field day, quoting every expert they could get their hands on and speculating when they couldn't. And the news wasn't good.

According to a hassled government representative who had been one of the media's primary victims 'an electromagnetic pulse originating near the centre of Manhattan' had essentially blown up every electrical device in a twenty kilometre radius. From experience Harry could guess just how bad the damage was, and he pitied the people working on fixing it.

All of this, unfortunately, made it very hard to get around. Harry, when he had been roughly planning out what he needed to do to survive, had been counting on public transport to get around the unknown city. Community centres and information offices would have been helpful too, providing him with maps and vital details, but neither had been particularly high on the priority list, apparently. One or two had reopened, but none near Harry.

Never mind that, on top of all his other problems, the black out meant the city was crawling with people trying to fix the mess it had created - electricians seemed the most common, though Harry had seen everything from plumbers to bricklayers wandering around - and law enforcement officers trying to keep the peace and stop people from taking advantage of the situation. The police were out in force, generally helping wherever they could, but even the army were making the occasional appearance. They were the ones Harry put the most effort into avoiding - police would be annoying but not too difficult to deal with. The army, on the other hand, had contacts, and Harry did not want to catch the attention of the CIA or any such organisation, thank you very much.

Harry's next three problems - information, money and food - had their source in the black out too. With the shops closed it had taken two days to get a hold of a newspaper, and four to find a currency exchange, hidden away in the lobby of a large-scale hotel and run by a man who had scowled and grumbled through the whole transaction. Living on what equated to army rations for four days had not been fun, but Harry had finally been able to go shopping and now had a loaf of bread, butter, jam, a bag of apples and some beef jerky stored in his trunk under light preservation charms. He had been tempted to get more - Remus's insistence that chocolate fixed everything had become a life rule for Harry - but considering he was currently living under a bridge in a conjured tent covered in muggle-repelling and notice-me-not charms, traveling light sounded like a good idea.

And the fifth problem? That was why he had needed a currency exchange and was one of the few aspects of this whole thing so far that Harry had found amusing.

He was in New York.

As in New York,_ America._

The experiment calculations had, of course, plotted a trajectory straight through North America, but nobody had thought he would actually get anywhere near that far. The Atlantic Ocean, perhaps, somewhere between Ireland and the Canadian coast, but not all the way to the continent. And, in any case, he was in _New York. _That was _not_ on the trajectory!

Harry had spent a good ten minutes after first discovering that simply standing in the street, staring up at the signboard that had alerted him to his location (an ad from the government with a few phone numbers to call for welfare assistance - something about 'c_hitauri_ damage'. What in Merlin's name was a _chitauri?_). Eventually he had been knocked out of shocked daze - literally - by a middle-aged businessman on his phone walking straight into him and, after finally noticing all the strange stares he had been getting, disappeared as quickly as possible.

His last problem, of course, was also the biggest and, in some ways, the most pressing. It was also the one he had been most actively trying to avoid thinking about since he had managed to calm down from his fourth panic attack. Because, seriously, it would be just his luck that of all the places in the universe he could end up, he would land _here_.

There was no magic.

Or, at least, no magical community. Not as he knew it anyway, with the American Ministry of Magic having a branch in every major city, despite being quite relaxed and much more modern that its British counterpart. As far as Harry could tell, it wasn't even that there was just a small community, or a particularly well-hidden one. He had both physically searched the city and tried every spell he could think of, including a few out of one of his books, and there had been absolutely no sign of any magical presence here.

The first place Harry had looked, that first morning after he realised that buying a newspaper wouldn't be immediately possible, had been the New York branch of the American Ministry of Magic. He had been there before, twice on business and once as an ambassador (Kingsley's fault, and not something that was ever repeated) but neither of the entrances he knew of had worked. The guard-statue entrance, a witch who had stepped from her pedestal and bowed visitors down a hidden staircase, no longer even existed in the little warded nook of Central Park he remembered it from. A, "Point me, American Ministry of Magic," had done nothing but set his wand spinning crazily on his palm, so he had tried one last (frankly stupid) idea.

Trying to apparate into the Entrance Hall of the Ministry, despite his frightening lack of magic, had blasted him back a metre, dropping him on his back, severely winded, and depleted his core once again. He had sat there for several minutes, wide eyed and trying to get his breath back, as his brain attempted to puzzle through the situation, shying from the only two answers he knew were most possible: apparition wards on the Entrance Hall - which had not existed during any of his previous visits - or no Ministry. At all.

It wasn't conclusive, just that small piece of evidence, but it had almost sent Harry into his second panic attack before he remembered to breathe. The most likely reason there would be no Ministry would be if there was no magical population, but there were other reasons - a small or scattered magical society, a different organisation of government or even just the Ministry being in a different location with different entrances. Harry's mind clung to that hope.

Having no Floo powder or access to a connected fireplace, no owl and a severely drained magical core had limited Harry's potential methods of searching though. The apparate-into-the-Ministry attempt had also put him to sleep for nearly fourteen hours and it had made him wary of trying anything even remotely strenuous any time soon.

The jingle of the bell over the cafe's door pulled Harry from his thoughts and his intensive study of the pavement outside the window. A man - tall, muscled and blond - had wandered in with the ease of familiarity and immediately captured the attention of several of the other patrons who waved and greeted him by name. He made straight for the counter, leaning on it with a smile, and Harry turned away, facing the window again in the hope that the man wouldn't sit at his table. There was just something about him that screamed military and Harry had been doing his best to avoid those types ever since the encounter in the park that first night.

Seeing his reflection in the window brought a small smile to Harry's face, remembering the other major event of the last five days. It had been rather educational and had kept his mind from planning more reckless stunts or over-thinking and sinking into despair or panic thankfully, but the equal mix of surprise, joy and trepidation had been quite confusing.

When Harry had awoken from his nice long nap the second morning, it was to pain in his bones, scratchy bristles on his chin and hair covering his eyes. A couple of grooming charms had taken care of the latter two, a painkilling potion from his trunk easing the former, but Harry had continued to sit there for a minute, staring at his reflection in a conjured mirror and frowning as his pulse started beating faster and faster.

He was older. Not obviously so, mainly just in a vague strengthening of his jaw line, and only by maybe a year, but it was there and it made his head and heart ache with a sort of nostalgic longing.

The accelerated growth had continued for the next two days, complete with aching bones and insanely rapid hair growth, but finally his body had stopped changing, pains fading away, and Harry had spent nearly an hour in front of a mirror and just stared at himself.

Taller. That was the first thing he noticed, when he had to transfigure his clothes a couple of centimetres longer. Broader in the shoulders too, and his facial structure had definitely firmed up slightly. All signs of a gangly teenager were gone and a young adult, twenty years old or so, stood in his place. Despite Hel's warning - and, god, he had been trying to pass off that part of his journey as a strange dream - it still took him by surprise. This kind of change - this many years regained - was far beyond anything he had expected of the deal. Experiments needed to be conducted, to deduce how much power he could use before it started visibly aging him. If he gained a year every time he used the Wand or the Cloak...

Two hours later, after having pulled himself from daydreaming, once again, about what his life might have been like had he not become the Master of Death, Harry had simply flopped down onto the slightly lumpy, transfigured bed and gone to sleep. His core needed replenishing - best done whilst asleep - and he was mentally exhausted.

Now though, after five days of keeping to the shadows, hiding under the Cloak and maintaining wards at all times, Harry was getting stuck on things to do. His main concern now was staying out of sight and not getting caught by anyone who might recognise him as a non-native - particularly any kind of government official - until he knew what to do next. His arrival would have been noticed - he wasn't optimistic or hopeful enough to doubt that - and the kind of attention that could come from being discovered as a dimensional alien with enough power to black out Manhattan (and he still cringed, knowing he would feel guilty about that for a long time yet) was not anything we would be able to deal with until he was at at least half strength magically.

So he hid, sleeping whenever he could and avoiding using his magic any more than necessary for his safety. Constant vigilance, as Moody would have said. After all, it wasn't paranoia is they were really out to get you.

A clatter and a shadow looming over his table made Harry look up, right into a blindingly bright smile.

"Do you mind...?" the blond giant from earlier asked, waving one hand at the only spare seat. It would be rude to refuse, and suspicious, so Harry just smiled and nodded.

A minute passed in silence, Harry still pointedly staring out the window, considering the window-less, fire damaged bakery and laundromat across the road - a lot of New York seemed to be in various states of 'destroyed' or 'rebuilding' actually, which Harry had been yet to find an explanation to - before the man spoke again.

"I'm Steve. Steve Rogers."

Harry stared at the offered hand for a moment before snapping back to reality - his Auror training had taken over again and sent his mind off calculating all the ways this could go wrong - and reached out his own hand to shake. "James Evans," he replied with a small, completely false smile. It was the name on a good third of his identification papers, a name he had used a million times before, and with his instincts raging like this there was no way he was going to give out his real name. This man - Rogers - was definitely military. His build and the way he held himself made it very clear.

Silence fell for another minute, Harry returning to counting the cracks in the pavement outside, before Rogers made another attempt at conversation.

"You're not from around here, are you?"

Mind jolting from 'suspicious' to 'suspicious and worried', Harry slowly shook his head. "No. I'm just on holidays." _If only._

"England, right?" Seeing Harry's questioning look Rogers grinned. "I'm just guessing by your accent, but that's where I'd say you're from."

"London, in particular." If there was a New York in America it made sense that this world would have a London in England too. When Rogers just smiled, Harry felt a flash of relief. So the geography was vaguely similar at least.

"How long have you been here?" Rogers asked, taking a sip of his drink - an extremely strong coffee from the aroma.

"Only a few days," Harry hedged. Then, because he might as well try to get some information from the guy, added, "It's been a bit hard to get around."

Rogers smiled ruefully. "The blackout?" Harry nodded. "I can assure you that it wasn't planned. Still trying to figure out what happened though."

Oh. Was he...? "I hope it wasn't anything too difficult. Waking up in the morning to find out the electrical system has blown itself up was quite a surprise."

"You're lucky you slept through the black out. A lot of people got woken up by things exploding or catching on fire." Rogers was still smiling, but it his voice sounded slightly different now - almost disappointed. He had been digging for information then, in case Harry had seen or heard anything. "The city should be up and running again soon enough. There's a lot of people who've been helping out with that. And others who are working on finding out what happened."

A soldier, definitely, but not one used to dealing with information. It almost sounded like he was just talking about getting the city back on track but Harry could read between the lines and there was something there that hinted at Rogers knowing more than he let on. A particularly high ranking soldier, perhaps, with ties to the people researching the black out. A soldier who had been sent out to gather information because of his admittedly gentleman-like appearance and behaviour.

Seriously, could his life get any more complicated?

Just as Harry decided that trying to find some way out of the conversation, preferably the cafe, was a good idea - his cup was still half full and he didn't have a watch or a phone so just leaving would look suspicious - Rogers' mobile rang. He pulled it out with an apologetic smile and fumbled with the buttons for a moment before frowning at the screen.

With a sigh Rogers pocketed the phone and knocked back the rest of his coffee. Offering a hand again he admitted, "Sorry, but the boss is calling. It was nice to meet you."

"You too," Harry answered with a polite smile. Rogers nodded and pushed himself up from the almost-too-small table, waved at the girl behind the counter and strode out, turning left outside the door.

Harry waited all of three minutes, nervously gulping down his tea, before standing, grabbing the remaining half of his croissant and following the man out. He turned right as soon as his feet hit the pavement and weaved through the other pedestrians, turning into every less populated street he came across. Finally, after a good twenty minutes of walking, he came to a dingy alley far from anyone else and, after a quick glance around, turned on the spot.

Nobody was near enough to see him or hear the almost inaudible crack as he disappeared.

* * *

A few kilometres off the coast, several hundred feet up in the air, a computer beeped.

Startled, a certain genius billionaire and a scientist with anger management issues both froze, slowly turning to look at each other, then leapt into action. The genius's gleeful yell was almost drowned out by the sound of machines whirring into life and a disembodied voice echoing from the nearest computer, but the other man shot a grin his way in reply anyway.

The hunt was on.


	5. Of Plans and Actions

_Hi all. Apologies for taking so long to post. Between doctor's appointments, blood tests, and switching from Arts to Engineering at uni, I haven't had much time. This chapter was meant to include more scenes but I decided it'd been long enough and this had enough words to be posted by itself. Concrit, especially on the first scene and general characterisation, would be much appreciated. _

_Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I didn't get to reply to every one, but I certainly read them all. It always makes me smile when a review turns up in my inbox. -BC_

* * *

**Chapter Five: Of Plans and Actions**

"Gentlemen, Agent Romanoff. Good to see you again."

Clint glanced up suspiciously from his inspection of the arrowheads he had brought with him to the bridge. "You're in a good mood, sir." Natasha, seated to his left at the large meeting table, was refusing to look anywhere but at Fury for more than a second at a time. The two agents had spent enough time around the Director to know that they should be very wary when he had that particular sharp and almost-happy tone in his voice.

"Indeed," Fury answered, sliding a manilla folder of papers across the table, then stepping back to cross his arms. "We got a lead on our suspect."

Natasha immediately held out a hand, into which Clint automatically placed one of the three stapled reports from the folder. Steve, sitting across the table from the two agents, was slid the remaining copy.

"Harry James Potter?" Natasha asked, quickly reading every detail of the first page. "There isn't much information on him."

"That's our problem," Fury replied, scowling. "Face recognition got an almost perfect match but we have reason to believe that most if not all of the information we have been able to track down is incorrect."

Clint had already flipped to the third page, leaving the in-depth reading for later. He was frowning. "This says that Harry Potter is a thirty year old man."

"Yes, it does."

"Then how come the face recognition placed him at seventeen?"

Fury glared at the report in Clint's hands. "Because he is. Somehow, a thirty-something physicist who hasn't left London in months has turned up in New York as his seventeen year old self, possibly with the ability to control or at least utilise an unknown energy. I'm sure you can all appreciate-"

"That's-!"

Steve's outburst, uncharacteristically loud and cutting through Fury's explanation, sounded as if from anyone else it might have contained quite a bit of swearing. As it was, both Clint and Natasha looked up, surprised, and Fury paused to regard Steve with a questioning eye.

"I know this man!" Steve exclaimed, surprise and an edge of anger and self-recrimination in his tone. "Just before- he- at the cafe-" Steve paused and took a deep breath. His posture straightened and after a second to compose himself he reported with military precision, "When you called me at ten-fifty-five I was at a cafe in Lower Manhattan that I frequent. There was a new customer I hadn't seen before so I approached him to question him on the black out. He introduced himself as 'James Evans' but-"

"James is his middle name," Natasha reminded. She flipped through a few more pages, from the data on the target, past the reference sheet from the face recognition and to the several pages dedicated to Harry Potter's life history. "Also his father's first name. And Evans was his mothers maiden name." She frowned. "It certainly sounds like we have the right guy."

"Evans didn't look any older than twenty, though." Steve added. "I wouldn't say seventeen but definitely no older than twenty."

"Not seventeen?" Fury questioned, eyes narrowed.

"No, definitely not. I would place him at nineteen at the youngest."

"Interesting..." Fury muttered. "I'll have the techs run some checks - make sure they've reconstructed this video properly, and see if they can't pull up some video feeds from the area. Your usual place, Cap?"

"Yes sir," Steve answered, not even surprised that Fury knew which cafe he frequented. The guy seemed almost omniscient sometimes, and he certainly had the information network for it.

There was silence as Fury moved to his station and tapped away at a screen for a moment - sending out orders most likely - before he turned back, pinning Rogers with his gaze. "What was your impression of this 'James Evans', Captain?"

"Average height; slightly athletic build but not overly muscled; short, messy black hair; green eyes," Steve rattled off. "He was staring out the window until I engaged him in conversation - I think he was curious about the damaged state of the shops across the street. If anything, I'd say he's ex-military. His posture was stiff and he was unusually aware of his surroundings - he was sitting in a corner with his back to a wall and his eyes flickered over the cafe every few minutes. Definitely English though, and his accent was strong enough that he can't have been here long. He said he was on holidays from London."

"So his physical appearance, minus his age, and his nationality match the profile." Fury summarised. "Possibly ex-military - which isn't anywhere on Harry Potter's file - and therefore possibly dangerous even without any extra abilities he may have."

"What do you want us to do, Director?" Natasha asked, staring up at the Director with her fingers steepled over the report on the desk in front of her.

"For now, I was Romanov and Barton on the ground, on standby for when we do find the kid. Captain, you continue as you were but keep an eye out. If you see 'Evans' again, try to get more information out of him. There's a possibility that he might be willing to share something.

"There's a quinjet waiting in the docking bay for you, agents, Cap. Make sure you read the report on the way down-" that came with a very specific glare aimed at Barton, "-and remember to get in contact with our agents on the ground once you're there. Any help you need, just call-"

"Not so fast, Nick." The hiss of a door sliding open made the three Avengers turn to look, just as Tony came striding through the doorway, his steps bouncing just the slightest. Bruce was only a few steps behind and though he was walking at a much more sedate pace he was still grinning almost as widely.

"I hope you've actually found something, Stark, and aren't just wasting my time like the last dozen times you've waltzed through that door," Fury snapped.

"No, no. No wasting your time. I mean, really, would I do that?" When blank or accusing stares met Tony's glance around, he pouted. "You lot are no fun."

"Your findings, Stark?"

Tony grinned and handed over a palm-sized screen with several windows of data layered across it; tables, graphs and a couple of equations that had been shrunk until they were almost unreadable just so that they would fit onto the miniscule device.

"Stark, if you expect me to be able to understand this without the aid of a magnifying glass, a dictionary and several experts-"

"They're energy readings," Bruce cut in quietly. "At eleven-twenty-one a.m. there was a spike of energy in downtown Manhattan that was very similar to the original signature recorded five days ago at the start of the black out. Not quite the same - it's as if the original energy was made of three parts, one of which was absent this time and another barely registered - but there's a high chance that it's from the same source."

"Our guess-" Tony snatched the small screen back from Fury, earning himself a glare, then hijacking the table's screens and sending the information through to them - not that Natasha, Clint or Steve could read the various statistics well enough to understand everything they were saying, but it was the thought that counted. And being able to annoy Fury just that bit more. He continued, "-is that the third, missing component in the original energy pulse was the shards that were left behind at the black out epicentre. If the guy - it is a guy, right?" he asked, glancing around the table. Steve nodded. "If the guy is no longer using them - and we can assume that they were originally part of a full crystal which broke, hence why he left them behind - then that means that either he's got two similar devices left, one of which he used earlier today, or that one of the energy signatures is purely him. Which means," he announced, spinning to face Fury again and throwing an arm out in a grand gesture, "we can track him!"

Fury just stared for a moment, purposefully not responding to Stark's grandstanding, before turning to Bruce. "Doctor Banner, you agree?"

With only a brief glance toward Tony, who was spluttering indignantly, Bruce murmured, "Yes. It's the most likely theory. There is always the chance that our readings are off, of course - we are constructing the technology as we go-"

"You're the best in the business," Fury reminded him. "Both of you," he added with a reluctant glance at Stark. "I trust you to not make mistakes on something as serious as this."

Clint muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Palladium."

Tony sent the archer a glare, one eyebrow raised in challenge, before pointedly turning back to Fury. "Don't worry, Nick. We've got it covered. You just get us the tech and we'll find your mystery man for you."

"You'd better or I'll be taking the cost of that tech out of your accounts, Stark."

Tony scoffed, already busy playing with his phone again. "You can't do that. Jarvis, he can't do that, right?"

"I believe Director Fury removed one thousand, four hundred and twenty-three dollars from your fourth spending account two weeks ago in reparation for the incident with the flying vacuum-robot experiment." Jarvis's voice echoed from the phone.

Snickering, Clint shot an amused grin at a carefully-blank Natasha.

Tony whirled to stare at Fury in astonishment. "What? How? No, better yet: why didn't Pepper tell me about this?"

"I believe it was Miss Potts who gave Director Fury the passcode, sir."

Tony froze, shocked and scandalised. "Pepper did?" He glared into space as he turned to leave the room. "Just because of that, I'm not buying that painting she wanted, you hear, Jarvis? She can do without another abstract cluttering up the living room. Just because no one understands the need for- "

"Your tech, Stark?" Fury prompted, just as said billionaire reached the doorway into the hall, still muttering to his phone.

Stark waved a hand negligently. "Bruce can tell you what we need. He's better at knowing what stuff's called - I just build it as I need it." Then the door opened and Tony stepped through, already back to arguing with Jarvis.

Banner stepped forward, handing Fury a sheaf of paper. "Our findings up to now and the equipment we need, Director."

Fury called Hill over as he rifled through the pages and handed her the request form - only half of which was filled out properly, the other half seemingly just a scribbled list with a few diagrams thrown in - before folding them into his copy of the 'Harry James Potter' file.

"Let me know if you need anything else."

Bruce nodded and, taking it as a dismissal, sent a tentative wave at the other Avengers as he followed Stark out.

"Captain, agents: there's a quinjet waiting for you," Fury reminded them as he turned back to his computers. "And Barton, Romanov." He sent a pointed stare at the two agents who had just stood from their seats. "If you do find Potter, play nice."

Clint and Natasha smirked.

* * *

"How far off are we, Stark?"

The billionaire's voice over the radio was a strange mix of his and Iron Man's.

"_We've set the search area to a one kilometre radius and you're about five hundred metres from the edge of that."_

"Brilliant," Clint grumbled. "We're also within range of Central Park." He spared a glance out the side window even as his fingers flickered over the quinjet's controls. "Could this kid have picked anywhere more annoying to hide?"

"_I'm pretty sure that's the point,"_ Tony mumbled back, voice distracted by whatever complicated calculations he and Bruce were running. "_It wouldn't be a very good hiding place if you could find him that easily. Besides," _the grin was obvious in his voice, "_at least he didn't disappear off into the middle of the Afghan desert."_

Natasha scoffed. "Typical, Stark, making everything about you."

"_Hey, now!" _Tony cried over the link. "_We've been through this, super-spy. Not everything, just most things."_

Clint shot the speaker a disbelieving stare. "Just tell us where to go, Stark. Unlike you, we actually have a job to do."

"_I have a job!"_ came the indignant reply.

"Yes, but you don't _do_ it," Natasha snapped back. "Location, Stark?"

There was a few seconds of clicking and a brief background mutter that sounded vaguely like Bruce, then a sigh.

"_You're gonna want to find somewhere to put that jet down. We've got the search field down to a four-hundred metre radius but that's as good as it's gonna get for now."_

"Roger that." Natasha was already pulling the quinjet down to land. "Where are we in relation to the search area?"

"_Currently?_" A moment's silence, then, "_About sixty metres from the north-eastern edge."_

Clint grinned as he watched the console power down. "You gonna stay with us Stark?"

It was Tony's turn to scoff. "_And listen to you two lovebirds reminisce over gruesome past missions as you trudge through the wild streets of central Manhattan? No thanks."_

"_Someone will alert us if you run into trouble."_ Bruce's voice, suddenly overtaking the radio, was muffled by Tony's protests in the background. _"Have fun."_

"Good to know someone's got our backs," Clint muttered, grinning. "We'll see you both back at base with our new prisoner in a few hours then."

"_Don't jinx yourself!_" came Tony's yell.

Clint and Natasha shared a grin as they each slid out of the cockpit. As if anything could stop them from completing a mission as simple as this.

* * *

Living in a tent was boring. Even in a magically expanded one complete with a bathroom, kitchen, small library, two bedrooms and a sitting room with a fireplace. It was also nerve wracking to know the only thing between you and potential enemies was some flimsy canvas, no matter how many spells it was coated with.

Harry already knew this - had ever since he had spent so long in a tent in the Forest of Dean all those years ago while hunting horcruxes - but he had forgotten just how bad it was.

It had been four hours since Harry had met the militiary man in the cafe, three since he had apparated back to his camp. It was now nearing 2:30 in the afternoon and having run out of food the night before, he was starting to consider venturing out from his hiding place. The chocolate croissant from the cafe was the only thing he had eaten all day and while he knew he could survive at least a while longer, Harry wanted to go stock up.

He was still paranoid though. Having known Moody - even fake Moody - for as long as he had, the mantra of constant vigilance had been pounded into his head. Harry was pretty sure that man had been militiary and he had definitely been asking questions, so there was a chance...

And yet, he could be wrong. The man - Rogers - had been nice, polite, and a lot of the other customers seemed to know who he was. So even if he was digging, there was no guarantee he wasn't just a regular, curious about the strange Brit hanging out by the window.

Harry sighed, suspicion and optimism warring in his mind. On one hand he was alone in a whole different world and his arrival had been flashy enough to most likely draw the attention of all sorts of people. On the other, nobody knew who he was here and, if magic truly didn't exist, he had a massive advantage over anyone who came after him. So.

Hide in his tent until he stopped jumping at every sound and starve, or go out to get food and run the (unlikely) risk that someone actually was after him.

Hide, food. Hide. Food. Which...

A grumble from his stomach had Harry grinning wryly. Food then, since his stomach was asking so nicely.

Even if something did happen, Harry justified to himself, he could take care of it. He had the training and the advantage, so it was highly unlikely any muggles - no matter how technologically advanced - would be able to catch him. Injure, maybe, especially if they had guns. But somehow he doubted any of them would be willing to go full power with a gun in the middle of a city.

Probably.

Harry grinned as he stood and moved to collect his coat and wallet. Despite his belief that nothing would happen, adrenaline was rushing through his veins and it was a welcome feeling. All throughout his schooling and brief Auror career he had gotten used to the feeling of his blood pumping like this and he realised now he missed it. Even the brief excitement of some of his Unspeakable projects couldn't compare to the heart-pounding rush of willingly walking into danger.

Possible danger. _Possible_, he reminded himself.

Sticking his head out the front flap of the tent first to check for muggles - although there was a ward in place that should alert him of anyone getting too close, you could never be too careful - Harry sent a pulse of magic through the mark on the back of his neck and felt a sense of utter safety settle over him with the liquid weight of the Invisibility Cloak. It always made him feel near invincible when he had the Cloak on.

No one was in sight and the wards were silent so Harry slipped through the flaps of the tent, securing them with sticking and lacing charms - the magic-controlled, several metre long laces were the wizarding world's answer to zippers, apparently. The wards tightened up behind him as he left, funnelling more power into making the muggles not notice the nondescript tent or even the area several metres either side of it, and Harry strode forward, turning onto the first road he found.

Food, and maybe a few other things to pass the time. Boredom was best alleviated before Harry got it in his head to do something reckless ('stupid' said a voice in his head that sounded rather like an eleven-year-old Hermione) after all. A chess set could be interesting, if he could remember the spell to animate the other pieces to play against him. Or even some books, to learn more about this world he'd ended up in.

Heh. Chess or books. It was good to know Ron and Hermione had left a lasting impression, even here.

Harry was still grinning ten minutes later when he ducked into a side alley and let the Cloak fade back into nothingness, then returned to the street with his hands in his pockets, humming happily.


End file.
